


Face Mask

by TheLetterQ



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-23
Updated: 2010-07-23
Packaged: 2017-10-10 18:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLetterQ/pseuds/TheLetterQ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph is alone with her thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Face Mask

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first A:TLA fic. Also, I've not gotten around to reading any fic for A:TLA yet so if this idea has already been done, I'm sorry, but there's room enough for all of us!
> 
> Takes place after Book 2, Chapter 15 (Tales of Ba Sing Se).
> 
> My niece, who has been watching the series with me asked how Toph would see herself. My response was "Noooo! Don't make me want to write fan fiction!" and then I explained the following scenario.
> 
> Crossposted to my FFN account, AO3, DW journal, LJ, and various communities.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own A:TLA. All characters belong to their trademark and copyright owners.

  
Katara had called her pretty. She almost wondered if she could believe Katara even though she could feel that the waterbender wasn't lying. She had told Katara that she didn't care about looks or boys or anything like that and it was the truth. But then again...

What _is_ pretty, anyway? She knows that it's all a matter of perception, taste she supposed. Some people might like meat tarts while others think they're disgusting. Or like how the life of a princess might suit some girls fine, but how she herself hated it. Preference.

So then, she was pretty? When she was little sometimes she would touch her face and felt the way it curved and dipped so that she could get a picture of what she looked like. Her cheeks were so soft and chubby. Kind of vulnerable and weak, not firm like rock.

She can hear and feel the wind as it blows over her while she sits outside and thinks. She can feel every tiny particle of dust when she scuffs the ground with her bare feet. She can sense them float blindly and weightless, like when she rides on Appa. She can feel the little thud as her butt touches the bricks of the city's ground. She can feel her back against the wall that she is leaning on.

But she can't see her own face, she can only feel it and that's not enough anymore.

She touches her palm to her cheek and feels it's soft warmth, then her forehead and feels her bangs tickle her knuckles. Her skin is still smooth from the mud mask she got at the spa. She feels the ground when she puts her hand back down.

When she raises her hand again it's with a sharp motion and a trail of dust follows it. She makes the dust solidify into a ball and takes a deep breath. Then the dust sticks to her face like a purple pentapus, covering every last inch of her skin.

She let it grip onto her like a tight glove and she makes sure each little grain of desert sand knows it's place before she makes it pull itself away from her face.

It turns mid-air, a sand mold of her own face staring blindly back at her. She takes the mask in her hands and brushes her thumbs lightly along the valley of her gritty cheeks, the bridge of her nose which ends in a little button-like mountain. She touches the path of her lips and the dip of her eyes.

"So this is what you look like, Toph Bei Fong," she says out loud. "But...is it pretty?"

As she lets the face mask dissolve into a million tiny grains of sand and filter through her tiny fingers, she thinks her face seemed rather ordinary. But Katara didn't lie to her.

Maybe she was just losing her touch.


End file.
